Opened a bottle of King Estate's 1999 Pinot Noir vin Gris. A Pinot noir mixed some pinot gris. Needless to say, it was a nice pink color. It was fruity, dry and pretty simple. Nice dinner wine. The top of the cork was pink, I figued it was a hard wax. As I uncorked it, the cork was pink all the way through. It was plastic! A pretty pink plastic cork. Just thought it was kind of funny.

MrD, Not trying to one-up your reply but I`ve had ONE corked bottle in the last4,5,6, or 7 yars. I posted this on another thread some months ago I think on the Storage Thread. `Kaint bemember but i be sure I`ve opened bunches of bottles in the meenwhiles. winoweenie

Yeah, I did knowtice that it gave my screwpull a bit of a struggle. They should maybe label that they are using a plastic cork so you don't give yourself a hernia, or split your screwpull in half. I have only had one corked, and it wasn't because of storage. It was bad straight out of the winery.

Look guys..... Please forgive me for I know not the "official" name of the thing, but I use a cork puller with two prongs that goes down between the cork, piece of plastic (whatever) and the glass, and you twist out the cork. Comes out very easily and intact, with minimal pieces of cork floating in the top of your bottle, and won't fight your screwpull when your pulling plastic. As an added bonus, you can re-use the cork to seal the bottle. Invest the $4.95, and you'll never want to use anything else. Don't believe me? E-mail me your address and I'll mail you one, my treat! Hey, what are winecollectors for?

I would say that if you're only getting a few corked bottles from that volume of openings that you are quite lucky! Even during my recent trip while we were having dinner at (Mumm) A la Maison Cordon Rouge our host turned down at very corked bottle of Cordon Rose', (& there were only four bottles being served). Just during this three week trip we encountered that bottle and two reds that were slightly corked. Often people attribute faintly corked wines as the wine being bad itself. I see this at tastings where I will get to a table and ask for a taste of a wine that has only maybe 1/4 the bottle left and it will be corked! This means that at least 8 other people tried this wine before me and didn't notice nor were they sure enough to mentioned it. Considering the many wines from all over the world at tastings, there does seem to be some countries with more corked bottles. Overall I figure about 2 badly corked bottles out of 100 and 4-6 with low, drinkable levels of cork is avarage for me.

As far as corkiness, it is a learned thing, but is also a physical thing. In scientific trials, people's threshold for sensing TCA can vary by a thousand-fold. So many people will be saying the wine is corked, others say no way. Even if you cannot perceive the TCA, you will often notice that the wine lacks fruit or seems lifeless.

Last week I was at a big Italian wine tasting at the Mariott Marquis in Manhattan. At one station (I will not mention the producer's name) I was poured a corked Barbera D'Asti. The nose was faintly corked but the fruit had been stripped away. The bottle was about two-thirds full. When I pointed out the corkiness to the distributor rep, he first said that no one else had mentioned it, then he poured himself a taste and told me I was wrong. I told him that if the wine was not corked, then it wasn't up to standards as a Barbera, and when I asked to taste the Barolo he refused to pour it because, he said, "You do not understand these wines."

Now that is what I call a real salesman: obviously in need of no customers, at least not this one, and obviously doesn't know when a wine has a problem. Incidentally, I am one of those people Bucko mentions who are super sensitive to corkiness in the nose (and SO2).